Front Matter

Front Matter for Volume 47, Issue 1 of Michigan Journal of International La

Winter 2026 - Going Beyond U.S. Law: Intro to Foreign, Comparative, and International Law Research

Whether you\u27re working with commercial transactions, marriage and custody issues, immigration statuses, or myriad other topics, your research may involve the law of another nation or be governed by an international treaty. This workshop will teach you best practices and resources to help you tackle foreign, comparative, and international legal issues, whenever they arise. Host: Kate Britt, JD, MLIS | Reference Librarianhttps://repository.law.umich.edu/legaltechseries/1027/thumbnail.jp

Winter 2026 - Student Training on Harvey

Student Training on Harvey - Tuesday, January 20 @ 12pm Harvey AI is an AI tool designed to streamline everyday legal work, like reviewing documents, analyzing contracts, and building workflows. It’s trained on legal materials and can be customized for use in law firms and other professional legal settings. Harvey has been adopted by 70% of AmLaw 10 firms and nearly 50% of AmLaw 100 firms. Resources covered: Harvey AI Host: Harveyhttps://repository.law.umich.edu/legaltechseries/1022/thumbnail.jp

Winter 2026 - The Art of Prompting: Use Cases in Legal Practice

Don’t know where to start with GenAI? Attend this session to write better prompts and walk through use cases to practice prompting, test AI outputs, and build confidence using AI thoughtfully in law school and beyond. Resources covered: Lexis+ Protege, Westlaw CoCounsel, ChatGPT, Gemini Host: Christine Schauder, MLIS | Head of Emerging Legal Technologyhttps://repository.law.umich.edu/legaltechseries/1025/thumbnail.jp

The Hard Law-Soft Law Nexus: Autonomous Vehicles as a Case Study

The technology governance debate often focuses on the dichotomy of hard law versus soft law as competing models. Both hard law and soft law have their strengths and weaknesses. But framing soft law versus hard law as a dichotomous choice is often unrealistic—every technology will be governed by a mix of hard law and soft law. So, the more realistic questions are where hard law works best and where soft law succeeds, and how these two types of governance interact and integrate. After reviewing the strengths and weaknesses of hard law and soft law, this Article identifies six different hybrid models integrating hard law and soft law. The article then considers hybrid hard law/soft law models in the context of autonomous vehicles (AVs) as a case study. After reviewing the challenges and stunted progress of AV regulation, the analysis focuses on two recent rulemakings in which the first Trump and then Biden administrations proposed frameworks for AV regulation in the waning days of their respective administrations. Analysis of the comments submitted by the broad range of AV stakeholders shows a sharply divided community, with about half of the stakeholders adamantly supporting a hard law approach, and another half equally favoring a soft law approach. However, there was substantial support for hybrid hard law/soft law models, with all six models identified earlier in the article and two new models receiving support. Based on this analysis, the Article suggests that a hybrid hard law/soft law approach is the most promising direction for AV governance

The International Order, International Law, and the Definition of Security

As economic security has seemingly moved to the center of American and European foreign policy, both the United States and the European Union have broadened their interpretation of international law rules governing security, coercion, and intervention. But these interpretations are not exactly new, echoing developing state interpretations of international law that developed states had long ago seemingly rejected. How are these once moribund interpretations of security, force, and coercion being brought back to life? This article argues that these interpretative shifts highlight the role of the international order as an interpretative mechanism within international law. Borrowing from the work of Robert Cover, it explains the ways that the international order acts as a jurispathic agent within the system, judging which interpretations live on and which are cast aside. As global power shifts, the international order shifts with it, potentially reopening interpretative fights over international law. Today’s fights over the meaning of security, force, and coercion thus reflect both the realities of a changing order and the battle to shape the one to come

Enforcing the Community Reinvestment Act

Nearly fifty years after the Community Reinvestment Act of 1977 (CRA) required banks to serve low- and moderate-income (LMI) areas, the systematic exclusion of disadvantaged communities from the mainstream financial system persists. This Article identifies a novel explanation for the CRA\u27s limited impact: its enforcement mechanisms are ineffective.The CRA operates through two enforcement channels. Regulators must (1) consider a bank\u27s CRA record when the bank seeks permission to merge or expand, and (2) publish periodic assessments of each bank\u27s CRA performance. Using twenty years of CRA data, we show that neither enforcement mechanism works as intended. Banks strategically increase CRA lending before announcing mergers, then sharply curtail it after obtaining regulatory approval. Meanwhile, public disclosure of CRA ratings--either good or bad--has no discernible effect on banks\u27 financial performance. These findings indicate that the CRA\u27s enforcement mechanisms do not encourage banks to make long-term, sustained investments in LMI communities as intended.Our results suggest that policymakers should fundamentally rethink CRA enforcement. We propose reforms that regulators could implement within the existing statutory framework, such as evaluating banks\u27 historical CRA ratings during merger reviews, enhancing public disclosure requirements, and adopting new incentives for strong performance. Given the persistence of financial exclusion in the United States, we also evaluate alternative strategies beyond the current statutory framework that could better promote equitable access to the financial system. We examine approaches used successfully in other countries, such as universal service mandates and public banking, that could complement or replace the CRA to help ensure underserved communities have access to basic financial services

Effects of the Reverse Charge Mechanism on VAT Gaps

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the effect of reverse-charge mechanism (RCM) implementation on VAT compliance using an overall, countrylevel measure of VAT compliance, the VAT gap. The VAT gap is defined as the overall difference between expected and realized VAT revenues and is a broader measure than outcomes employed in previous research, incorporating all types of VAT evasion. Exploiting the staggered adoption of RCM across Europe and the size of industries targeted by RCM, we compare changes in the VAT gap before and after RCM implementation. Evidence from difference-in-differences, event study, and heterogeneous treatment effects estimators indicates that the adoption of the RCM does not lead to significant EU-wide changes on the aggregate VAT gap. Moreover, our results illustrate the mixed impacts of RCM on different goods and industries, with measurable decreases in VAT losses in the construction and industrial crops industries. This study’s findings do not provide strong support for policy changes that cast the net of the RCM wider on all industries and EU member states, although bilateral coordination in RCM adoption with top trading partners may assist in curbing VAT fraud relocation

Winter 2026 - Summer Associate Prep

Are you ready for your Summer Internship? Attend this session to learn what practice area specific resources the firms are using, download guides and other resources to help prepare you for practical law firm work, and ask a former law firm librarian anything! Resources covered: Practice area specific legal technology, Summer Associate Resource Kits/Toolkits, and student questions Host: Christine Schauder, MLIS | Head of Emerging Legal Technologyhttps://repository.law.umich.edu/legaltechseries/1029/thumbnail.jp

Liability for Non-Disclosure in IPOs

A privately-informed entrepreneur may withhold material information from prospective investors who may sue the firm ex post for (alleged) non-disclosure. Absent liability, the entrepreneur has an excessive incentive to withhold bad news and pursue socially-wasteful projects. Liability deters inefficient non- disclosure and prevents capital misallocation. Any damage award received by investors is partially offset by a reduction in equity value. Depending on the likelihood of court error and litigation cost, the socially-optimal damage award may be either zero or the minimum necessary for full deterrence. The private incentive to waive liability may be socially excessive or insufficient. Positive and normative implications are discussed